Cops in Gardena, Ca., didn't want the public watching them kill a man who took his hands off his head, but a federal judge decided it was in the public interest, reports Richard Winton and Joel Rubin at the LA Times.
The grainy videos, captured by cameras mounted in two patrol cars, show three men mistakenly suspected of stealing a bicycle standing in a street under the glare of police lights. With their weapons trained on them, officers scream at the men to keep their hands up.
While two of the men remain motionless, Ricardo Diaz Zeferino appears confused by the officers' instructions. He drops and raises his arms repeatedly, showing the officers his hands and stepping backward and then forward a few paces. A laser dot from an officers' pistol can be seen on his shirt. After Diaz Zeferino removes a baseball cap from his head, officers standing to the side of the men unleash a volley of gunfire.
The videos show Diaz Zeferino, 35, collapsing to the ground, along with one of his friends, who was wounded.
It's "tragic for all involved," says Gardena Police Chief Ed Medrano. The video proves that "police acted lawfully," writes District Attorney Jackie Lacey. The city of Gardena settled a lawsuit over the street killing for $4.7 million.
